As the RIAA sends out another wave of 531 lawsuits to clamp down on illegal file-sharing, the Motion Picture Association of America has moved to focus primarily on education as a step to fight against movie piracy.

“We’re taking a multi-pronged approach,” Rich Taylor, MPAA vice president of public affairs, said in an interview last week. “We’re trying to increase public education . through talking to universities about usage policies and punishments that should result from violations of those policies.”

Taylor said that other education tools include new movie trailers, a Web site and efforts to educate 900,000 middle school students about digital ethics.

According to Taylor, the education process is a long-term one that will be a perpetual effort, not a result that will come immediately. Because there will always be a new generation of kids getting exposure to the Internet, the MPAA hopes to educate students about proper Internet use.

The MPAA has estimated that the film industry loses between $3-4 billion each year due to piracy, both on the Internet and off. Though the MPAA has been fighting against piracy for 30 years under the leadership of MPAA President Jack Valenti, the Internet in recent years has added obvious complications to the fight against piracy.

Because of the Internet, the problem has also outgrown the boundaries of the United States. “Nine times out of 10, someone will camcord a new release in the U.S., e-mail the file oversees, make it into a disk and re-export it back to the U.S.,” Taylor said.

In order to protect the interests of studios even if state legislation does not follow MPAA guidelines, many studios have begun embedding forensics into films that can be tracked back to the original.

In addition, moviegoers must also go through a metal detector at all advance screenings, and any image-capturing device, from a video camera to a photo-capable cell phone is supposed to be confiscated until the end of the movie, according to Taylor. It has gone so far in some theaters that employees use night vision goggles to make sure no one is videotaping, Taylor said.

The MPAA differs in its approach to targeting illegal downloaders, Taylor said, by using education.

“I think it’s safe to say we wouldn’t rule out any tool at our disposal to protect our works when they’re under siege,” Taylor said. “We’re going to explore all the various realms to do our best to lower the level of piracy taking place.”

The MPAA and studios hope to move toward releasing films legally for downloading online, but Taylor said that this project was a goal that would be pursued over time. “Think of the Internet as a neighborhood,” Taylor said. “No business is going to open up in a neighborhood, large or small, if there is going to be a lot of looting.”